Who directed All Quiet on the Western Front?

Edward Berger is the director of the film All Quiet on the Western Front.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a German anti-war film released on Netflix on October 28, 2022. It is the first German adaptation of the 1929 novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows the life of a 17-year-old boy, Paul Bäumer, who joins the German army with his friends against his parents’ wishes. Initially, he was excited to go to war and had a feeling of patriotism, but soon faced the reality of war when he got deployed to the front lines in northern France.

The film’s cast includes Felix Kammerer, Aaron Hilmer, Albrecht Schuch, Edin Hasanović, Thibault de Montalembert, Daniel Brühl, and Devid Striesow. It is a story about World War I from a German perspective. The film received 14 nominations from the British Academy Film Awards, of which it won 7. It also went on to receive 9 nominations at the Academy Awards, of which it won 4 Oscars. Let’s take a look at the director’s career and his involvement in the film.

Who is the director of All Quiet on the Western Front?

Edward Berger is the director of All Quiet on the Western Front. He is a German-Austrian director and writer, born on March 6, 1970, in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. He studied direction at New York University in 1994. After his graduation, he worked at a production company called Good Machine Productions where he worked on films directed by Ang Lee and Todd Haynes.

He returned to Germany in 1997 and made his directorial debut with the film Gomez – Kopf oder Zahl in 1998. He directed many films, including Female 2 Seeks Happy End (2001), Jack (2014), All My Loving (2019), All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), and Conclave (2024). He has directed many TV shows, including Schimanski (2001-2002), KDD – Kriminaldauerdienst (2008), Deutschland 83 (2015), Patrick Melrose (2018), etc. He is married to actress and writer Nele Mueller-Stöfen.

Edward Berger’s direction in All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is directed, co-written, and co-produced by Edward Berger. In an interview with Deadline, he shared that he got the idea of making this film in 2019 after talking to the producer Malte Grunert. Through this film, he wanted to showcase the German perspective on World War I and make a German film out of it, as there are many existing English-language adaptations. He spent a lot of time casting the right people as he wanted people who interpreted the characters the way he saw them. He wanted to make it a physical and visceral experience for the audience. He took this project because he wanted to feel challenged and do things he had never done before.

In an interview with The Talks, he shared, “We here in Germany are familiar with this perspective on war stories and know about our guilt. I myself, at least, carry it around with me every day, I think about it and can’t just set it aside. And I don't want to set it aside because it is part of our history. I found it interesting to convey this feeling to an audience abroad as well. When I watch English and American war films, I always notice that there are heroes. They defeat the enemy, have a mission to complete, they have to overcome obstacles or save someone, and at the end they can be celebrated for their heroic deeds. We can't tell stories like that from Germany, and I wanted to use All Quiet on the Western Front to convey to other countries, why that isn’t possible.”